Masks
by infinitestars10
Summary: "Because love is Piper and Jason, with those smile-filled water fights on the beach. Love seems like eternity, until life comes and sweeps it away, just like the wind in hurricanes." UPDATED


**Okay so I know I should be updated Swept away, but I just re-read this, and decided that it was a teeny-tiny bit too…OC for me (if that's the correct term). Or cliché, I don't really mind. I feel like I just ranted on about my support for Jeyna, and expressed my feelings for Piper if that happened-if that makes that sense. So I organized into a slightly more manageable structure.**

**Updated: 1/2/15**

Her early life was wasted - hidden behind masks of shyness. She _was_ the girl who chose to sit in the back, not because she wanted to pass notes, but because she chose to hide behind shadows instead of being sociable. Her father would bring her to movie premiere's, simply because he didn't have a date to bring with him. She'd wear a mask to them, because she didn't want to be 'Tristan McLean's daughter!' the girl who everyone wanted to be friends with, just because she was all prettyandfamousandpopular. So she cut her own hair, told her father; _no, I'm not going to the premiere's because I just don't feel like it. _

But then she met him; the golden one-the one who transferred from San Fran, the Quarterback and somehow, she caught the desirable attention of the boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, and she didn't wear one-a mask. She sat in the front, stopped cutting her own hair, though she still didn't let her father drag her premiere's. She was happy; completely fooled by illusions that were never even real. Long road trips, water fights in the beach, sneaking out to carve names on trees. She shined the brightest at that time. But alas, stars were never meant to last. Their time of sunny beaches and pine trees and cars were long gone; just like a photograph, fifty years too late.

By the time next summer came along, he suddenly forgot her, but that was fine because he fell in love with her again. Then they went on their quest to save the world and he suddenly became distant. He was as close to her as the next star from the Sun was. Her kindness turned into bitterness when he finally broke the news to her; she could not take his heart, because another girl already had. She was too late. Her anger was used on dummies during training sessions. Meals were skipped in favor of moping and wallowing in her sadness. Her eyes were no longer the bright hopeful colors of the future, but were bottomless pits of black.

When the final battle came, she killed like a monster herself, a whirlwind of bitterness and rage, happy for an opportunity to release her emotions through battle. So when her friends died, she felt nothing, as nothing felt for her. She was invincible, untouchable, unattainable.

She withheld a reputation of bravery and courage-yet another mask. But no, it was not one of shyness; it was one that covered her pain and bitterness. No one knew that when the night was still cold, and the sun was yet to rise, she'd run out of the cabin, and trace her hand over the heart and the names, yearning for a glimpse of the once perfect life she could have kept. She'd stare up into the stars; the infinite stars glittering and shining like they were dancing, her eyes a pane of cold blackness caused by her love. Aphrodite was right; love is the most powerful emotion.

Her siblings, Annabeth, they would never understand her, because they'd all gotten their happy endings. Because they'd never won and lost a lover like Piper. Because love is Piper and Jason, with those smile-filled water fights on the beach. Love seems like eternity, until life comes and sweeps it away, just like the wind in the hurricanes.

She'd aged with the mask; instead of being the actress she'd once dreamed of, she became the ruthless lawyer that everyone wanted to hire. She'd spend nights in bed, chanting to herself that it wasn't fair that she never got her happy ending; after all, even that daughter of Bellona got hers, so why can't the daughter of love get one? In front of her father, she pretended to be happy, for his sake, but he noticed her eyes. He didn't point it out to his daughter though - he knew she would tell him when she was ready; she never did. So he let her keep her own emotions to herself, because she's old enough to take care of herself, and it's not his business.

So time passed, and when her skin finally wrinkled and liver spots dotted her arms, she drifted off to sleep for the last time. She awoke as Piper, back when her skin was smooth and young, and she was twenty-two. One thing stayed the same though, her eyes. So when the judges said Elysium, she smiled respectfully, without any real emotion, and her feet led her to the beautiful iron gate that guarded the only place in the underworld with blue skies and the warm sun.

She thought of the golden boy, and his dark-haired-black-eyed girlfriend waiting for her behind the iron gates, grimaced, and took a sudden turn towards the river Lithe. She saw her hands dip under the surface of the pellucid waters, and held it to her lips, and drank.

The masks she hid behind vanished, letting her free once more.


End file.
